GODSmessenger
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THE CHOICE: HYPOCRISY OR REAL CHRISTIANITY?
(By Chuck & Nancy Missler)
http://www.kingshighway.org
The Church's Lack of Love
As we look around -- at our churches, our families and our friends -- we see many who are dying from a lack of love. These Christians are not only unable to experience God's Love for themselves, but also unable to love others as God designed. Thus, they have resorted to living the Christian life in their own power and strength and have thrown themselves into other Christian "things" -- such as, the gifts and outpouring of the Spirit, healing ministries, doctrinal debates, faith movements and other various evangelical outreaches, etc. (Now, it's not that any of these things are bad in themselves, but without God's Love alongside, the Bible says they will be meaningless and empty). As a result, these believers have lost the true meaning of their lives, which as we said, is being loved and loving as God designed. Revelation 2:4 very appropriately speaks to these kinds of Christians and says, "You have left (or covered up) your first love."
God's Love is the glue that binds us together and tragically it's missing in many of our lives. It's only Jesus' Love through us -- in our actions -- that will bring our families and our friends and neighbors to the feet of Jesus. God is Love and the only way these people will ever know that we are, indeed, Christians is by the Love that they see and feel through us.
A precious friend said to me yesterday, "I thought Christianity was all about love and acceptance." This young woman was in the process of becoming a Christian, but the church she has chosen to attend is giving her a very hard time because she is in the middle of a divorce. They have, unfortunately, put the cart before the horse and are judging her even before she comes to Christ. Where is the Love? Where are the real Christians?
Another example: Megan was about to marry the "love of her life." Everything had already been purchased for the wedding, including the bridesmaids' outfits, the honeymoon spot and their furnished dream home. Megan had given up her job and literally everything to move to the city where her fiancé worked.
Tragically, when her engagement was broken off just two months before the wedding, on top of feeling rejected and unloved, Megan had to again move. She had to find another job and endure the humiliation of seeking financial support from her family. Megan was completely broken and devastated by the whole experience. As she explained, "it was like going from almost perfect happiness to total emptiness and loss".
In her new location, she made friends quickly and became quite close to a few Christian women. However, soon Megan heard that some of the women were gossiping about her. This made her feel even more unloved and rejected.
What she needed was the loving arms of Christian brothers and sisters who would encourage her back to emotional stability. What she received, however, was judgment and criticism. She heart-breakingly said, "My non-Christian friends in my old city were much more loyal and caring than some of my new Christian friends. Why?"
Something Is Very Wrong!
Sadly, both of these young women have totally been turned off by the behavior and attitude of the Christian body towards them. Something is very wrong! Aren't we supposed to be a "hospital" where the stronger ones are to care for the weaker? Aren't we supposed to continually forgive each other, exhort each other and love each other? We often jokingly say, "Oh yea, Christians are the only ones who form their own firing squads in circles." We laugh about that and kid each other, but how tragic it is that no one seems to care enough to stop it.
God's Love doesn't just fall out of heaven. His Love comes through us. We are His arms and legs. We are extensions of His Love and His Life to one another. Remember the wonderful story of the German pastor imprisoned by the sadistic guard? That pastor had every right to hate his tormentor and yet, because he loved God, he made The Choice to be an open vessel of God's Love to that guard. As you remember, God's Love finally broke through and the guard admitted that he saw the face of Jesus in that humble pastor.
This is real Christianity! This is God's will and this is the kind of Life that will bring others to Jesus.
Larry Crabb, in his book Inside Out, shares that Christians can spend years reading the Bible and developing a real love for the truth; but, if they come away without knowing God in a deeper and more real way and without His Love for people, then they will have wasted their time. The whole purpose of Bible study is to make us more loving, not more scholarly.
David Needham in his book Birthright confirms this same thought: "...the big task is not the finding of the truth, but the living of it!" And this is so true. Many of us know the truth in our heads, but very few of us are walking it out in our lives.
Extensions of His Love
If so many people are Spirit filled, as they claim to be today, then why don't our churches, our homes, our marriages and our relationships reflect this? How can we be "Spirit filled" and not love filled? Aren't they the same thing?
Love, to me, is simply the measure by which we can tell how "Spirit filled" a person is.
God's Love and Life are passed on through us. We are His "arms and legs" in this world. We are extensions of His Love. All He requires of us is a cleansed life. Now, being a vessel of God's Love doesn't really sound too complicated? Why, then, are there not more examples of this in the Christian body? If Jesus is in us and we have His Love in our hearts, why then, are we having such a difficult time loving others as He designed?
The answer is, we don't know how to make The Choice to let Christ live His Life out through us. We don't know how to choose Life! We don't know how to set ourselves aside and love God, so that He then can love others through us.
1 Peter 1:22 sums up what loving God means, but it also instructs us as to what we are to do now: "Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned Love of the brethren, [now] see that ye love [agapao] one another with [from] a pure heart fervently."
Now, it's true that until we learn to really love God, there's no way we can genuinely love others as ourselves. In other words, it's impossible to totally give ourselves over to another, until we have first totally given ourselves over to God. Only God can make loving others possible. Once we have loved Him, however, we must go on and be those open channels of His Love to others.
As 1 John 4:21 admonishes us, "And this commandment have we from Him, that he who loveth God [must also] love his brother.
Everything Except Love
When we don't make The Choice to let Christ live His Life out through us, however, this is what can happen...
Nancy was a missionary and part of a team of American Christians who recently smuggled Bibles across the Burmese border.
She said that the Burmese Christians had very little materially -- no Bibles, no concordances, no commentaries, etc. They each had torn out pages of one old Bible that they all shared. Each of them cherished their own pages and had every word memorized. Even though the Burmese Christians were lacking in material things, she said, "The Love they displayed for each other and for us was overwhelming."
The American Christians who accompanied Nancy, however, each brought their own "personal" Bible (and sometimes a Greek or a Hebrew one besides); they each had their own concordances, different commentaries and everything materially one could desire as a Christian. But, what was conspicuously missing among these American Christians was God's Love. She described her Christian brothers and sisters as continually backbiting and quarreling. They had absolutely no love for each other, let alone love for the Burmese.
When the Burmese Christians left their group, the whole mission fell apart. There was no Love -- no "glue" -- left to hold the rest of the body together.
This, again, is a perfect example of Christian phonies, who often do more damage than good. Jesus was still in their hearts, if they were truly believers, but self life is what showed forth.
1 John 4:20 admonishes us, "If a man say, 'I love God,' and [yet still] hateth his brother, he is a liar; for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God Whom he hath not seen?"
We Are To Initiate Love
As Christians, our only responsibility is to be willing. Willing first to love God with all of our heart, will and soul and then, willing to love others. Jesus is our example and He freely surrendered His Life so that He could be an open vessel, through which God's Love and Life could be given to us. And since 1 John 4:17 tells us, "we are to be in this world, as He is," we must freely lay down our lives so that His Love and
His Life can be given through us to a very needy and dying world.
"Greater Love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13).
God's Love is initiating Love, which means that it takes the first step. In other words, it's the first to reach out, the first to care and the first to start the restoration of a relationship.
Now, for some of us, initiating God's Love is hard because we, too, are going through difficult times and it's tough to set our "self" aside in order to reach out to someone else. However, if we are truly believers, then we always have God's Love within us and we can choose, by faith, to put our own circumstances and feelings aside, and allow His Love to flow through us. We might not "feel" that we have any love of our own to give out, but that doesn't matter, because Jesus always does. Remember the German pastor. Clearly, God wants each of us humble enough, sensitive enough and listening enough so that when He prompts us, we can initiate His Love to that other person no matter how we feel or what our situation is.
What has happened is that we have allowed our prideful thoughts, our hurt emotions and our self-centered desires to quench God's Love in our hearts and this is what has caused it to "wax cold" in our lives. There are more divorces, split churches and ruined relationships in the Christian body now than ever before. The Cross has been forgotten in many of our lives because we are preferring our own happiness and our own desires over God's Will. Many of us don't know what it means to love God -- to deny ourselves, pick up our Crosses and follow God. We talk a lot about it, but how many of us are really living it?
When we truly learn to love God first, He will change our natural thoughts and feelings to match the faith choices that we have made.
The Problem: We Love Ourselves
Many Christians today want to distort the Second Commandment by saying that we must "love ourselves" before we can "love others." It does not say this. It simply says that if we are loving God first (totally giving ourselves over to Him), then He will enable us to love others before or instead of ourselves. In other words, because we have made The Choice to totally give ourselves over to God, He, then, is free to love His Love through us to others. This kind of self-sacrificing Love, as we have previously seen, is naturally impossible; it's only when we love (agapao) God (and know that He loves us) that He can pour this kind of supernatural Love through us.
Instinctively and automatically (humanely), we love (agapao) ourselves first, even as Christians. It's not that we have to be taught to love ourselves, we do this naturally and, this is really the root problem to begin with and what God is trying to change in all of us.
As Ephesians 5:29 tells us that, "No man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth it and cherisheth it." And, Philippians 2:21, "For all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's."
Now, some of us "totally give ourselves over" to ourselves in a prideful, boastful and arrogant way, and obviously we can see that this is wrong. But, still others of us are consumed with ourselves through self-hate, self-pity and self-abasement. This, too, is loving ourselves and, of course, not God's will. Consequently, both of these ways of loving "self" are wrong because in both cases we are consumed with our own thoughts, emotions and desires before God and before others!
Jesus wants to now reverse this natural order of things. And by our learning to love Him first, He can then fill us with His Love and enable us to love others before or instead of ourselves.
The Problem: We Don't Like Ourselves
The problem is not that we don't love ourselves -- again, we do that naturally; the basic problem is that we don't like ourselves. And according to Scripture, there's a world of difference between these two: "Love" is the Greek word agapao, which means "what we totally give ourselves over to." "Like" is the Greek word storge which means "what we have affection for or care for." One is a commitment love, the other is an emotional love.
Now, the reason many Christians we don't like -- or have affection for -- themselves is because: 1) We don't really know that God loves us personally; 2) thus, we don't have the confidence and the trust to continually lay our wills and lives down before Him and become cleansed vessels; 3) therefore, it's not really Christ's Life coming through us, but our own self life; and, 4) the result is, we don't "like" what we say, what we do or how we do it. And, it's no wonder -- it's not God's Life.
So, the problem is not that we don't love ourselves, we do that automatically. The problem is that we don't like or have affection for ourselves.
Healthy Self-Esteem
The only thing that will ever bring us that healthy self-liking and self-esteem that God desires is: 1) personally knowing that God loves us; 2) which will then give us the confidence to lay our wills and our lives down to Him and allow His Life to flow through us; and, 3) as a result, we'll begin to "like" what we say, what we do and how we do it because it's God's Life coming through us and not our own. (Again, see "Supplemental Study" page 162 for a visual picture of this.)
This is not self-confidence or self-esteem as the world calls it, but God-confidence and Christ-esteem. It's God's Life and His Character that is showing and this is what we like about ourselves.
Only by Christ-esteem and God-confidence can any of us walk as God would have us. As Proverbs 3:26 says, "For the Lord shall be thy confidence..." (Proverbs 14:26).
We Must Live Christ's Life
People often ask us, "What is the best thing that we can do for our unbelieving family and friends?" "What book should we get them?" "What tapes should we have them listen to?" "What class would you recommend?" The answer we always give is very simple. "Learn to make The Choice to let Christ live His Life out through you! Live His Love! Show that it works for you in the bad times, as well as the good."
A Scripture that is very appropriate here is Isaiah 24:15: "...glorify the Lord in the fires." In other words, at all times we are to reflect and show forth Jesus' Life. It's through the humility of Jesus that God's grace reached us, therefore, it will be through our own humility -- living Christ's Life -- that God's grace will be able to permeate all our relationships.
. Again, the Life is always Jesus', but The Choice to implement it, is constantly ours.
Walk Wisely in God's Love
Unconditionally loving others does not mean "sloppy Agape" or unbalanced Love. Love without God's Wisdom alongside is not God's Love at all. God's Wisdom is what will teach us how to walk in God's Love wisely. Only God has the right solution for each situation we face and we need to continually seek Him for that direction.
As mentioned earlier, God's Love can manifest itself mercifully in our lives, or it can manifest itself in strictness and firmness, when needed. The question becomes, which type of Love do we use for our particular situation -- God's longsuffering and merciful Love, or His severe and disciplinary Love? Both are God's Love, but in our own unique situation, which kind of Love do we use? Again, we need God's Wisdom on this. Every person and every situation is different and what works for one is not necessarily what will work in the next circumstance. Only God can tell us how to love wisely.
God's Wisdom will teach us when to love in mercy and compassion and when to love in strictness and firmness. As we said, each situation, each circumstance and each person is different. Only God has the perfect answers we need, because only He has the Love we need and the Power to perform that Love in our lives.
Loving others with Agape Love does not mean overlooking the sin that they are involved in, pretending that it doesn't exist or taking responsibility for it by pointing it out and trying to fix it ourselves. When we love someone wisely with God's Love, we still see the sin in their lives, but we don't take it upon ourselves to bring it up all the time. We simply give our feelings about the sin to God and then trust Him to do something about it.
Thus, it's not our responsibility to point out another's faults. Nothing will turn others off quicker than our being a Holy Spirit "nagger." God has not called us to be "criticizers," but encouragers. We are not to constantly pick at our loved ones, but simply to trust God and love them wisely. We obey Him by giving Him all of our frustrations, resentments and bitterness, and we trust Him by knowing He will pour His wise Love through us.
Be a Hosea
Hosea in the Old Testament is a powerful example of one who loved others as God designed. He loved God by continually surrendering his life so that God's Life might be shown through him. He didn't overlook the sin that his wife was involved in, but God enabled him to forgive her and to love her wisely. In his own power and ability, Hosea could never have loved his rebellious family the way that he did. Yet, because of his faithfulness to love God first, yielding his will and life completely, God enabled him to unconditionally and wisely love his wife and children. When we allow God to live His Life out through us, as did Hosea, what they will see in us is God.
The question: "Are you willing to be a Hosea?" Are you willing to lay your will and life down so that God can reach your family, your friends and the Laurens of this world through you?
"To Them That Perish, It's Foolishness"
This way of living, of course, looks crazy to the world. It's totally opposite to everything we have ever learned and everything we have ever been taught! Thus, to the world, it's completely foolish!
And, of course, they are right. This is a foolish way of living, because it is not natural! It's not a normal, human response. In fact, it's completely opposite to our instinctive, self-centered ways of thinking and reacting. God, Himself, tells us that "the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God" (1 Corinthians 1:18). And, it's the same thing with His way of Life. To them who don't know God's supernatural Life, living like this seems very foolish. But to them who see God work "impossible miracles," when they are willing to lay down their wills and their lives, this way is not only the power of God working, it's our whole purpose for living.
As someone wrote recently, "As I am beginning to understand and live God's Way of Love, I'm alive for the first time in my life."
God's Life through us is the only thing that will bring our families, our friends and our relatives to Christ. It's His lovingkindness -- in spite of the circumstances, in spite of how we feel and in spite of what we think -- that is going to draw them. However, we will only be able to mirror and reflect on the outside, the Love we are intimately and genuinely experiencing on the inside. In other words, if we are not experiencing God's personal Love for ourselves -- either because of doubt or a wall of frustrations and hurts -- then we are not going to be able to pass that Love and that Life on to others.
What Will You Choose?
How about you? What will you choose? Will you live Life as God designed or will you settle for a pale and phony imitation of Christianity, like Lauren's friends? God yearns that you might choose Life and by so doing, become a real Christian!
"Today, I have given you The Choice between life and death, between blessings and curses...Oh, that you would choose Life so that you might live" (Deuteronomy 30:19).
Can you tear up that long list of justified hurts and wrongs that others have done? Can you unconditionally forgive that person who has hurt you over and over again? Can you lay aside all those things and, for the hundredth time, choose to yield yourself to God and let Him love them through you?
There's no way in the world we can love like this naturally. Only God can love like this through us supernaturally. And it's only as we yield ourselves -- all our negative thoughts, emotions and desires that are contrary to His -- and make The Choice to become an open vessel that He can love like this through us.
What choice will you make?
Conclusion:
In conclusion, Jesus is the mediator or the vessel of God's Life to us. He died expressly so that His Love and His Life might be released through Him to us (1 John 4:10). His whole purpose and ministry was to willingly lay down His Life so that we might receive the Father's Love. And, as Christians, this is our calling also. To make the constant choice to lay down our lives so that Jesus might give His Love and Life to others through us.
This is what makes Christianity so completely different from all the other religions of the world. Our God is tangible, touchable and reachable, because He not only lives in us, He will live His Life out through us. God's purpose is that we might not only experience His Love for ourselves, but that we might become an open vessel to pass that Love and that Life on to others. "Hereby perceive we the Love of God, because He laid down His Life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for our brethren" (1 John 3:16).
When Jesus walked the earth, He was a true representation of God's Love and Life. He not only loved His own, He also loved His enemies (Luke 6:27, 32, 35). He knew that perfect balance between God's merciful Love and His strict and disciplinary Love. And, as we lay down our wills and our lives to Him, He promises to pour that same Love and that same Life through us to all of our relationships.
Your Turn
Now it's your turn. Have you chosen Life? Have you responded to God's Love? Have you said, "Yes, God, I need Your Love. I need Your forgiveness. I want You to be my Life itself."
If not, you can determine your eternal destiny -- right now -- in the privacy of your own will, by simply asking Christ to come into your heart and to take over. This commitment will launch you on the Grandest Adventure of all and is the very reason you are here reading this, right now.
Accepting God into our hearts and knowing that He will love us unconditionally is the foundation pad upon which our whole spiritual house is going to be built. We can't go further in learning how to love and be loved as God designed, until we first know that we belong to Him, and that He has the central place in our hearts. We must know that Jesus is in our hearts loving us before we can have the confidence to lay our wills and our lives down, moment by moment, and love Him in return.
The meaning of life lies in our relationships: first our relationship with God, then our relationship with others. By our first loving God with all our heart, will and soul, we not only will experience His Love for ourselves, but we'll be enabled to pass on that Love to others.
The Choice
God has given us a continual choice: to either let Christ live His Life out through us, or to close ourselves off to God and rely upon our own power and ability to live the Christian Life.
This is God's challenge to you: Choose Life (learn to live as God designed) so that you may have that abundant Life He has planned for you. If you refuse to take God's challenge and don't choose Life, then, as Scripture says, you will encounter many problems and live a very empty and meaningless life (Deuteronomy 30:19).
The truth is that only Jesus has the abundant Life that we need. All we must do is, moment by moment, make The Choice to love Him so that His Life from our hearts can shine through us.
It doesn't matter how long we have been Christians, how often we go to church, how many Scriptures we know or how sincere our prayers are, authentic Christianity is simply recognizing our own sin and self, and then choosing to surrender these things to Him so that He can live His Life out through us.
Again, it's God's Life -- but our choice to accept it -- and our choice to, moment by moment, pass it on.
As Matthew 7:14 says, "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leads to Life, and [only a] few will find it."
The question is: Will you be one who does?
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Yours In Our LORD'S Service:
GOD'S Messenger
Make A Difference Ministries
Posts: 19 | From: California | Registered: Dec 2004
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